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Sainsbury's launches free battery recycling service

October 19, 2006

Sainsbury's will be the first retailer in the UK to offer customers a Freepost battery recycling service. This is going to be the only scheme of its kind and is expected to save 2,500 tonnes of batteries going to landfill every year. 

From November, Freepost envelopes will be available in stores nationwide to allow customers to send off their old batteries, as well as mobile phones and inkjet printer cartridges, all of which will be re-used or recycled.  

This scheme is part of the supermarket's four-pronged attack to help customers cut down on their household waste. The battery recycling service follows the recent launch of Sainsbury's recycled orange carrier bag and compostable packaging saving 10,050 tonnes of plastic every year. Earlier in the year, Sainsbury's also launched state of the art recycling banks at its stores to allow customers to recycle a greater amount of items. 

While the average household uses 21 batteries a year, which is 25,000 tonnes of batteries annually, equivalent to 150 Jumbo jets, the UK only recycles 1,000 tonnes of batteries every year*. This new scheme is expected to increase this number significantly.

Comic Relief will also benefit from the scheme by receiving £3 for every mobile phone recycled, and 50p for every ink jet printer cartridge recycled.  

The EU Battery Directive has recently set recycling targets requiring that a quarter of all small batteries must be collected for recycling by 2012. This new scheme will help the UK to meet this recycling target.

Nearly three-quarters of the population will replace or upgrade their mobile phones in the next 18 months and it's estimated that tens of millions of unwanted mobiles are sitting in people's drawers at home. Recycling with Sainsbury's could allow them to be re-used by people in developing countries where the landline network is inadequate.

There are more of us printing at home than ever before, but only about 5% of all inkjet printer cartridges are actually recycled, the rest end up in landfill sites.

Sainsbury's recycling manager James McKechnie said: "Our customers are recycling more and more but we want to make it easier for them. This is a major green step forward because we are extending the amount that people can recycle. Most people now use either a mobile phone, an inkjet printer or in the very least, batteries, so we know this will be something people will be able to use that is of benefit to the environment." 

Chris Davey, Manager Local Authority Relations, at WRAP (The Waste & Resources Action Programme), said: ''As the manager responsible for WRAP's battery programme, I am pleased that Sainsbury's are introducing a new collection scheme for batteries as well as mobile phones and inkjet cartridges. If the UK is to meet the new challenging recycling targets for batteries, then we need to try a wide range of different collection schemes."

Further initiatives from Sainsbury's

• Sainsbury's new recyclable bag saves 6,500 tonnes of plastic / 53,500 barrels of oil and 1.7 billion old style carrier bags are to disappear
• Sainsbury's launched compostable packing across Sainsbury's SO organic fruit and vegetables in September. Almost 50% of organic fruit and vegetables will be available in compostable packaging and 80% by Jan 2007. Plus All of Sainsbury's Ready Meals by Sept 2007 and Organic sausages and organic whole bird - by October 2007.
• Current target of reducing amount of waste sent to landfill by 5% and our back of store machines already recycle thousands of tonnes of waste every year.
• Following a successful trial of state of the art recycling banks at six of our London stores.
• Plan to roll out to 50 this year, and we've identified 347 sites where there is potential to run such a scheme
  

About WRAP

1. WRAP (The Waste and Resources Action Programme) is a Government Organistion working in partnership to encourage and enable businesses and consumers to be more efficient in their use of materials and recycle more things more often. This helps to minimise landfill, reduce carbon emissions and improve our environment.
2. Established as a not-for-profit company in 2000, WRAP is backed by substantial Government funding from DEFRA and the devolved administrations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
3. Working in seven key areas (Construction, Retail, Manufacturing, Organics, Business Growth, Behavioural Change, and Local Authority Support), WRAP's work focuses on market development and support to drive forward recycling and materials resource efficiency within these sectors, as well as wider communications and awareness activities including the multi-media national Recycle Now campaign for England.
4. More information on all of WRAP's programmes can be found at www.wrap.org.uk

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